Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sam Bruchhaus of SumerSports projects JJ McCarthy (if he starts)

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by Sam Bruchhaus of SumerSports to discuss the analytics of the Vikigns' team building and what rookie QB J.J. McCarthy could do this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

you Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show for the very first time, Sam Brookhouse, who is a data scientist for Sumer Sports. As we continue to hunt the world for people to fill Eric Eager's shoes on this show as the resident data scientist. So Sam, I don't know, you've got some big expectations to live up for here joining the show. What's up, man? How are you? Look, I don't know if I can live up to Eric's resume,

but certainly if I do well on this show today, I'm doing something right. So much love to Eric and much love to everyone else from Super Sports over the years that you've had on the show. Well, why don't we, before we just dive deep into it, you can tell the audience, since it's your first time, a little about yourself, you're a former linebacker turned data scientist. How does that work? I mean, the linebacker is an intellectual position, though. So maybe there's a fit there for being a data nerd. Yeah. So like you said, I come from a football background. I played linebacker at Tulane University for four years. Luckily, we were okay. We made some of the first bowl appearances in the school's recent history.

And then, of course, once I went out the door, they win the Cotton Bowl last year. They make it to the conference championship, unfortunately lose to SMU, but they've been in New Year's Six Bowl contention since then. But you learn a lot coming from that and kind of in parallel, I was lucky enough to work in the NBA with agents and some of those guys during my time in college as well. So kind of got a two pronged view of it. And then it took me into a life of data science and computer science and really mixing those three experiences together has been really exciting for me. Because they are, like you said, very unique. And there is spaces that more than people would know or more than people would expect where it really does crossover, which has been exciting. Maybe ironically, linebacker, I think,

is the toughest position to pin down with data. And maybe anybody who has to cover anybody is tough because so much of your success relies on who you're facing, what type of defense you're playing the scheme. Sometimes a guy gets six interceptions in a season by being at the right place at the right time. And then PFF gives them a 90 grade because you have to, and then the next season they can't do it. Linebacker can be the same way. Eric did a study not too long ago that I thought was really fascinating about linebackers that showed when they were stepping up at play action and when they were not which could be you know the they're told to do that or they're not told to do that but even that's a hard thing to figure out is with someone guessing right and they blew up a play so they get a good grade or they

get a lot of tackles this was my paul pozlez or they get a lot of tackles. This was my Paul Pazlesny thing. Got a ton of tackles, but they were all seven yards down the field. I think it's even as we go to evaluate another season for Ivan Pace Jr., for example, who was excellent and a breakout player for the Vikings last year, do we really know that he's going to be able to repeat what he was able to do last season? Yeah, so Ivan Pace I've had an eye on for a long time because he's a, he's a Cincinnati Bearcat. So he was in the American conference.

If I'm not mistaken I thought he was a good, a good prospect coming out. So I was glad that he had a breakout season last year. All that to say from experience linebacker is an interesting position because much like quarterback, a lot of it is pre-snap. And you mentioned, you know, you're in the run fits and you are in coverage on every play. And you're really one of the few players who has a true 50-50 split of what's important, the run fits and the coverage. And so there's a lot that has to go on between the ears on any given play. And then, as you mentioned, Eric and Tej looked at the bite distance. So there's a lot of stuff with scheme coming in there, both on the offensive and the defensive side.

But at the end of the day, we've seen in the last few years linebacker become less of a premium position in exchange for you know positions obviously like edge rusher obviously like cornerback but even at the interior defensive line level teams have started heavily investing because you can there is a little bit more predictive evidence at those positions than there would be at a linebacker position and I think that's just a testament to kind of how hard linebacker is and how good guys like Fred Warner actually are, given that they're able to be consistent and effective, which like you said are two separate things at the linebacker position.

But, but when it comes down to it, you can have a huge impact on the field. But if you are in that position where, you know, running back has seen this a lot where Todd Gurley uh is very effective one year and then the next year or next three years sell the league and unfortunately linebacker is one of those positions but if you have a good one and you have a consistent one it can make a huge difference maybe Ivan Pace is that guy for the Vikings yeah I totally agree that there's maybe seven or eight linebackers in the league that every year are really good and if you have one of those guys I think you should pay them that they are so valuable if you can repeat their performance year in and year out.

And Mike Zimmer used to talk about with Anthony Barr, the pre-snap stuff. He was the green guy and he was also the guy who was playing the cat and mouse game with Aaron Rodgers. And Rodgers would talk about how tricky it could be with him out there and Harrison Smith moving around and making all the checks and changes and everything at the line of scrimmage. If you have a guy who's not good at that, it's going to be really tough for everybody else on the defense. If you don't have that calming force of the guy getting the play into everybody, making changes at the line of scrimmage, reading what the quarterback is doing. And I think a lot of their, you know, double a gap blitzes or dropping out was Anthony Barr having the freedom to decide

this is one where I can go. This is one where I should drop back. And you only see the results. PFF only grades the results, for example, and we don't really know what went into the process all the time. And the linebackers don't tell us, they don't come out and say, actually, that was my awesome call. Linebackers are a humble group. So they're not usually going to point that out after the game. So I think it is a fascinating position. Ivan Pace has a very high intellect for the game and has this Wolverine element to him that I think will continue to repeat. But you mentioned your interest also in salary caps, contracts, and roster construction and so forth. And you did some talking and writing about the impact of Justin Jefferson and his contract. I wanted to get your opinion on something that's been coming up and

truthfully, I've been making fun of it. So tell me if I'm wrong, which is Packers fans and Bills fans and analysts talking about how it's actually better to not have an elite number one wide receiver that you throw to all the time, but better to have a bunch of just dudes. Number twos. If you want to call them that I'm not sure in Buffalo, they can maybe in green Bay. They can personally covering this team. That is comical to me because I've seen the impact of Randy Moss, Chris Carter, Justin Jefferson, and so forth, Adam Thielen, Stefan Diggs over the years, but maybe I'm too close to this. How do you compare paying Justin Jefferson what the Vikings did and the target share he requires

versus what a team like Green Bay has with Jane Reed, Christian Watson, et cetera? Right. I think there's two steps and there's the step that probably everyone can see which is the packers and the bills have two very set quarterbacks as of now and in the packers example the packers have had a set quarterback for going on 25 years now so you can you can really play with what's out there when you have a quarterback who you can trust for the next three, four, five, 10, et cetera, et cetera years. I also do think the Packers have drafted quite well, but looking at Justin Jefferson as just like, you know, the only option, I think like you said, it is a little laughable,

especially given that they have an absolute weapon at tight end and TJ Hawkins. And, and so you so you really look at their salary cap, and they're really investing highly in those positions. Why are they investing highly? Because they take a J.J. McCarthy with the number 10 pick. And so when you have an aging quarterback who, you know, there's been up and down trust of in the past years with Kirk Cousins, and obviously he's a quarterback that can win you games.

But when you see that you have a situation and a coach that can be successful with a rookie quarterback, you probably take that. Given that you can pay those guys for a couple more years, you can let the quarterback develop. And frankly, I don't think there's any better supporting cast than a Justin Jefferson and a TJ Hawkinson to build up a young and upcoming quarterback. Right. And we expect Jordan Addison the same, nonetheless, despite his recent indiscretion. And I hope that he learns from this and becomes part of that duo as he started to be last year, just for him personally, of course, for Addison, because if he continues down this route, then that won't happen for him. But if he builds on what he did last year and learns from this,

you're talking about an elite wide receiver duo with the best receiver in the league, a top five tight end in the league, a very high quality number two wide receiver, and even some other guys that are mixing in. If Aaron Jones can catch the ball out of the backfield, there's all sorts of options for the quarterback. But I want you to take the Vikings out of this and just talk about it from the lens of the Green Bay Packers, because trust me, Vikings fans, they're like the neighbor in the suburbs looking over, what are those Packers doing? Is it really going to work for them? So that's my question. Is it really going to work for them so that's my question is it really going to work for them I think that Jaden Reed might just emerge as their

number one wide receiver from seeing him a couple of times it looked like he had most of the trust of Jordan Love but if he doesn't and you're talking about well they have four guys that they like to throw the ball a lot too I'm a little dubious that this is somehow better than having Devontae Adams on your team, but they seem to be fully sold on that idea. It's interesting. And this historically has been the way they approached it, obviously. And most notably twice with Favre,

Brett Favre and with Aaron Rodgers. And I think that the Packers have a mentality that they trust in their front office and they trust in their coach, Matt LaFleur, and that they believe that they can scout better than other teams, which analytically may or may not be true, but it's worked out for them. And they've surrounded Love with weapons who, you know in their first year first two years have performed well whether that's a christian watson whether that's a jayden reed like you said whether that's a player like romeo dobbs who i had the great misfortune to play against in the in the idaho potato bowl and any any riptis and newen um and you see them divesting in players uh like ann

jones who is now a viking And so while they're taking the quote, analytically correct approach in, you know, trying to invest in young guys, trying to really spend resources at the quarterback position in particular, and try to figure out everything else around there, there is a lot of risk. I mean, you look at the way that draft curves really, really go and you look at what to expect from things like young or wide receivers. And it, like you said, it could be a flash in the pan for any, any one of their guys. You can really only expect a rookie or excuse me. You can really only expect wide receivers on their rookie contract to have maybe one, if you're lucky to a thousand yard

years. So it very well could be a flash in the pan, but a lot does look back on the quarterback position and they've proven that they can develop that pretty well. Well, and I think that's true. And we saw that from Tom Brady for many years that he would take wide receivers that weren't particularly great, like Jabbar Gaffney or Dante Stallworth or something.

And guys that maybe you wouldn't get on Madden, but he would work with them. At the same time, when he had Randy Moss, he had the best season of his career. So this idea, and the same thing for Aaron Rodgers, this same, and I'm going off of just what I'm reading out of Green Bay and trying to kind of justify not having Devante Adams anymore in this whole approach. The hole in the approach is if you rely on four or five guys to all be pretty good. If one of those guys gets injured, then it's three guys that have to be really good. And you have to have depth at all times with that. Or you can't have someone get the yips or go into a slump or

really struggle. And I don't know yet that Jordan love is good enough to make up for that. If that happens, if Jaden Reed does get hurt, if Dontavion Wicks does get hurt. And we saw this a little bit from Christian Watson as well. Are you the same level of effectiveness as before? I do believe that they have one of the best coaches in the entire NFL. I'm just not entirely sold on the, I think, flawed approach to not having a number one wide receiver or the idea that it's actually better than having Devontae Adams. Yeah, I think, as you kind of mentioned before, the idea is that one of them will pop up as a top flight wide receiver. But like you said, it is a very uncertain league, much less uncertain position-wise and even more uncertain with young players.

So when you look at that Green Bay roster, I think they're going to try to really lean on Matt LaFleur and really lean on him getting the ball to folks and hoping that a situation like happened with the 49ers where all of a sudden Juwan Jennings becomes an asset for your offense and you can start to think about moving on from Iyuk. I'd much rather have Justin Jefferson, personally. But, you know, different strokes for different folks.

And they know that they have to keep Jordan Love happy and they know that at some point, especially if he continues playing well, he'll cash in for what is likely near or around a league leading contract that will hamstring them in other places. So when you have that knowledge and you think you have the good quarterback and head coach pairing, you try to optimize around that. And you're willing to roll the dice a little bit, specifically as the City Chiefs have done several years now uh post trading Tyree Hill right and that's the argument that people go back to is well hey look at the Chiefs I mean they do have the greatest quarterback of a generation it might be a tad different and their offense didn't perform as well without Tyree Kill last year so I'm not sure that even quite fits, but I still do think the Packers will be very good with Jordan Love going forward. And when you mentioned different strokes

for different folks, every single situation has to be analyzed with the context of what goes on with the rest of the roster. So if you pay Justin Jefferson, but you're not paying a quarterback, then you can survive this. If you're paying just for example, I mean, Jared Goff has been expensive, but they've got a lot of guys on rookie contracts and that's what Green Bay is trying to accomplish here. And maybe they will. When it comes to the Vikings roster building around Justin Jefferson, how do you feel about where they stand right now as far as going forward after Justin Jefferson's contract and how they manage building around it. We've got Christian Derrissaw at some point will get paid at the top of the league and they spent some money this off season and Jonathan Grenard, Andrew Van Ginkle,

they're going to all those guys, but still some holes in this roster that have to be filled if they're going to be a true contender at some point yeah we i think this year we kind of saw the chips get pushed to the middle for the vikings you have you know a contract with justin jefferson that set all kinds of new records he's the highest paid non-quarterback in the history of of the national football league um you see them trade up for a dallas turner in something that you know quacey uh adolfo minsa was looked at as like a very analytical person obviously uh i came up in the basketball world at some point you got to cash the chips in we even saw the thunder oklahoma city thunder and basketball do that a little bit this year as well um and and i think this is this was

the time they wanted to cash them in you can get a young quarterback and they clearly felt strongly that J.J. McCarthy was a good quarterback you can lock in the probably the consensus number one wide receiver in the league Justin Jefferson you have a top tight end and you have a great offensive line it lends itself to a strategy that that helps you develop a quarterback you you push that into the cards. You get a Dallas Turner at a premium position that you think is a great player. Medicals aside, it was very productive at Alabama. That could be a pillar for you on the defensive side of the ball. And then you kind of, like you said, you play the free agency game with some of your other addressers and some of the other pieces.

So I think once the front office there in Minnesota realized that they thought they had a young core, including Justin Jefferson, obviously, at the top and guys like Ivan Pace on the defensive side of the ball, you try to fill in the gaps and win at premium positions. And that's exactly what Minnesota did this offseason. Hey, everybody. I know it's summer, but might I suggest a quick trip to Las Vegas to stop into Circa Sportsbook in Nevada? Because guess what? The Circa Million and Circa Survivor Contests are back. For the Circa Million, you pick five teams against the spread every week and the winner takes home one million dollars and their survivor contest is legendary you pick one

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because you're going to want to get in on this for the football season. For more information, go to CircaLasVegas.com. Again, the Millions and Survivor Contests are back. Yeah, I think what they went for was, let's get, because it's available to us, the edge rusher, the quarterback, and make sure we keep the wide receiver. These are all, if you were ranking the positions

by most value, these are all very high on that list, but we're not going to be able to check off everything from the shopping list. It's kind of like how, when I go to target and I always forget something to come back and go, ah, you know what tortillas I was supposed to get. And I forgot them. They had the money to try to sign some other players in free agency, but probably better to wait on that until next year.

And they can really have the shape of the roster as they expect JJ McCarthy to take big steps forward, which does lead me to the quarterback position in the way the Vikings handled it. I thought that they handled it as well as they possibly could have. I would have preferred Sam Darnold with potential to Jacoby Bursette or Ryan Tannehill or somebody that you know is going to hold down the Andy Dalton or Mike Lennon role of playing for a couple of weeks and then, all right, get to the bench. That was enough from you. But with Sam Darnold, do you buy potential with him to take a step forward in his career and be better than he's ever been? Because as a data person, one of the problems is you only have the data that you can work with,

and none of it's good for Sam Darnold. There's little, if you get the microscope out and you go, well, hey, there was those four games or whatever with Darnold. And yet at the same time, we're talking about Jefferson, Hawkinson, Addison, the impact that these guys can have. I think supporting cast is still very significant in the league to what your quarterback does. So how do you break all that down and deal with that? Uh, the Sam Darnold problem. Yeah. So the, the first step, or I guess the first question that the Minnesota Vikings will have to answer is should they start Sam Darnold versus JJ McCarthy? And what is the evidence behind that? Um, Eric Eager did a great piece uh during

the season last year about whether you should start a rookie quarterback and whether it can have quote detrimental effects as many people say there's not a ton of evidence to support that so if you think you have a guy that can start immediately can win can win games and you think you can protect him and you think you can uh and you think you have great receivers for him then i say throw him in there but let's let's say for for this purpose that he is going with sam darnold i think that uh the vikings showed an ability to at least you know compete in games regardless who the quarterback is so you lean heavily on the head coach and you really look at those parts of the scheme where you can win with a quarterback that may not necessarily have the track record, the pedigree, or there's a lot of uncertainty to how they do.

So that's mixing in a lot of play action with a guy like Aaron Jones. That's mixing in some interesting concepts, moving Justin Jefferson around to different places, using different personnel packages, which they obviously have the flexibility to do, given that they do have a good tight end. And, and so you, you put all that in, in your kind of Uno cards and, and hope, basically it doesn't come back to you or you hope it does, you don't get a plus four and, and, and Sam Darnold kind of acts the, has, uh, plays the same way that he has in the past. But I think all that considered, they're in a pretty good spot, given they have a quarterback who has started some games.

And in Carolina, there were games where he was not an awful quarterback. He won a couple games, and he did pretty well, and he also showed some pretty good skills. And then obviously if it, if it goes down the drain and you want to throw JJ McCarthy in, you know, you have talent to come in and take advantage of the talent and the coaching that Minnesota has. There's a thing in football analysis because we spend so much time talking about it and not that much time actually watching football be played because that's how it works although 18 games is going to come soon and then we'll have a little more football watching but just in general we spend how many days per year talking about it and how many days actually going to games or watching games is i call it the kirk cousins nvp conundrum because you can if you

try hard enough talk yourself into kirkousins winning MVP every year every off season someone does it they'll go on TV and they'll say you know I got a hot take for this year I think Kirk's gonna win MVP now we all know that the odds of that are extremely low but it could happen and so we make it into a discussion point I feel a little bit the same way with Sam Darnold where it doesn't seem likely based on his past that he will play all 17 games and that he will lead a team to the playoffs and be super competitive and turn his career around all those things in the snap of the fingers, but it could happen, Sam, it could happen. So how do, how do you weigh between somewhere in between Mahomes wins MVP, which is a very clear and obvious thing that

could happen versus the least likely thing in the league. Desmond Ritter wins MVP. Like where on that spectrum would you put the realistic nature of Sam Darnold being legitimately good this year? Yeah, I think you go with the old adage of the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. And what I mean by that is if you want to see a change in behavior with a player, you have to put them in a new system with new people around them and set them up to succeed. So you look at some late bloomer quarterbacks that have existed in the past. Obviously, the one that comes most to mind is Kurt Warner, who was playing in the AFL and bagging groceries, and all of a sudden is a Super Bowl winning quarterback. What is the situation around him? Two fantastic wide receivers and a fantastic running back and a great coach.

Another one, obviously, very very true to my heart being a Saints fan from Louisiana. Drew Brees obviously did perform well in a Chargers uniform, but you move him into the Superdome, an indoor facility. You move him into, at the time, not a super strong division and you give him an offensive visionary like Sean Payton and all of a sudden you get one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. So I think all those pieces are actually there for Sam Darnold. You're getting probably a Hall of Fame wide receiver, and you're getting a very capable coach who has shown the ability to win

with kind of scary situations at quarterback, particularly after Kirk went down last year. And I think that is a good recipe for something like that to happen. But still, the probabilities are probably in the low teens, if not in the single digits there. Yeah, I mean, the fact that we've had Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield have turnarounds that have been somewhat similar and that in this very small sample that he played in San Francisco,

he looks pretty darn good. And maybe we could draw a little bit too much out of that. Unfortunately, I think that the simplest answer is the right one when it comes to Sam Darnold, which is if this man stops turning the ball over at a extremely high rate, he could be pretty good for them. And if he continues to turn the ball over to high rate, he will not be playing very long for Kevin O'Connell. You know, he benched Nick Mullins last year after his four interception game. And that's kind of what it comes down to is, can he figure out a way to not have whatever clicks in his brain that goes, I need to make an insane play here. We, and then it gets picked off, which is what I watch on his

film. I'm like, okay, he's playing along. He's having a good, what the hell was that? That's been the Sam Darnold tape analysis. And if that can change, he has the skill, you know, to make something out of this. Now, when it comes to JJ McCarthy, how do you feel about a player who has so little experience and is so young because you talk about stepping in early on, but this isn't Bo Nix that's 24 and has played 400,000 games in college and then is ready to go in the NFL right away. And that's even hard enough for someone that's 24 years old. We're talking about someone who's 21 years old, whose offense was not built around him necessarily.

Because you talk about whether young guys should play or not, whether they could be ruined. But I think it has to be approached a little more kid gloves with someone in J.J. McCarthy's situation yeah the track record with McCarthy is stellar the man's literally never lost games period across his whole career and you know as an analyst uh I I'm I try to neglect that because there's so many interpieces, Michigan's powerhouse, NFL level coaching, went to IMG Academy. And so I try to remove it from that. But as a guy who's been in the locker room, that means a lot when a guy comes in and is a true leader. And he obviously showed the ability to do that in perilous times where his head coach was suspended for many games. There were new coaches

coming in and out and he still, you know, chugged along and won a national championship. So I think that's feather number one in his belt, though not necessarily like an analytics predictive based thing. The second thing that I would note is I think his age actually gives him the ability to get NFL quality coaching and NFL quality talent earlier. So he can, he can really have a year or two where he can make his mistakes and, and, and, and then, you know, X those out very early and still have that long tail of age left to improve. And, and, and you just look at McCarthy, he was able to avoid mistakes.

He can run a little bit, and he's generally shown an ability to avoid sacks. Those are the three that I'd really, really be worried about with the young quarterback, and he's shown the ability to manage that. So I think that's the recipe for success for JJ McCarthy. Okay, let's say he wins the job out of training camp. Now, this is a hard thing to do for a reasonable person, but I'm going to ask you to be a little unreasonable and take a shot at this. What do you think his stat line would be? Give it a shot. I know you have no idea, and it could be completely wrong, and he might not even play until 2025, but I am curious what you think he would do if he were to start 17 games.

Yeah, you definitely don't want to put an expectation on him to have a Patrick Mahomes year one. I mean, I don't think we'll ever see anything like that again. I do think it may be a step too far to expect something like a Justin Herbert even type season. The one I'm looking at really closely is Brock Purdy. It's a very similar situation. He was very successful. He's been incredible in terms of, you know, like offensive EPA for a player. And I'd honestly expect, I'd expect McCarthy to perform the same based on where he was drafted, based on the expectations put on him in terms of the real life expectations of what has happened with these quarterbacks. It's really, really a crap shoot. It's, it's a dice roll and you know, you don't know where he can be. I'm, you mentioned Baker Mayfield. Baker Mayfield was analytically the greatest

quarterback almost in history at the time that he came out. Obviously he was a little shorter. He was in a pass happy system, so forth and so on. And you see him kind of struggle in his first years with the Browns and you see him be pretty successful with the Buccaneers. And so I think that JJ McCarthy probably fits somewhere in between that Baker Mayfield kind of bottom out where all of a sudden he's bouncing around the league. Then he finds a home because he is an accurate quarterback. He's pretty good at avoiding sacks, so forth and so on. Just needed the right scheme and the Brock Purdy of a guy who, you know, wins a job later, comes in because of injury,

performs really well with the great crew around him, and is able to win a lot of games. All right, you didn't give me the stat line. I'll give you a stat line. You tell me if I'm being silly. That's a good answer, but you went around the stat line so i'm gonna give you one i think if he played 17 games he'd throw for about 3 700 yards complete 59 of his passes throw 21 touchdowns 13 interceptions and they would go 7 and 10 how's that and he

would have a pff grade of 68 That's what I think he would do in his first year. Yeah. It's a, it's an interesting stat line. You know, I I'd expect him to probably have a higher completion percentage. I I'd probably say somewhere above 63% is what I would say. Um, that is because he is in a good situation. There's going to be a lot of open receivers for him to hit. Um, looking at yardage, I think you're in the ballpark. I think it probably sits a hair under 4,000, under 37 seems about right to me. And then you think about touchdowns and interceptions. He's shown an ability to not turn the ball over.

So it could almost be to his detriment that he doesn't turn it over. Maybe he's a little too conservative. I'd expect maybe a two-to-one ratio there, maybe 20, 25 touchdowns, maybe 10 interceptions. There's your stat line, Matthew. That's where I'm going for that. So let's say 37, 4,000 yards in that area 63 completion percentage and just north of 20 touchdowns about 10 picks I think is a fair place to say

should he get a full 16 games and be successful I feel like that would be an amazing first season for JJ McCarthy and he does fall into I I compared this using some PFF grades and something Ian Harditz, who, you know, from a fantasy life that what he put out there about supporting casts and compared JJ McCarthy and PFFs expectations to the other first round picks over the last five years. I think his was either first or second, as far as what he was inheriting for blocking for wide receivers and even for a running back which i think does absolutely help the thing about turning the ball over and the completion percentage

is that kevin o'connell asks a lot from his quarterback and he wants his quarterback to push the ball down the field to try to fit the ball into tighter windows which i think could result in less of a high completion percentage than Kirk Cousins, who often foregoed those windows to check down or throw underneath or something to someone open, which works sometimes and other times it did not. But I think McCarthy likes to let it rip and maybe that would cause some issues at first. But even my stat line, I think, is a very good start for someone who's 21 years old. So this is just an intriguing storyline for us. We start for someone who's 21 years old. So this is just an intriguing storyline for us. We don't know who's going to start. We don't know which quarterback is going

to play, what their stat line is going to be, which is very different than the past. I did want to ask you just a couple more things about the NFC North in general and your take on the Chicago Bears for this year, because I go back and forth between reading that the Chicago Bears are ready to take off in year one with Caleb Williams, talk about supporting casts, he has great wide receivers, an improving offensive line. At the same time, it's hard to win a lot of games with a rookie quarterback, but then again, they won a fair number of games last year with Justin Fields being a terrible quarterback. How do you weigh all the things happening with Chicago?

It is very interesting. I think they put themselves in a nice position. It's interesting that the NFC North is going to be great to watch because you're going to have three young quarterbacks, three young teams, period, and three pretty good situations. And that's not even counting the Lions who won a ton of games and have kind of proven that they can be successful and have an offensive line that very well could have two All-Pros, three All-Pros. So it's one of the more interesting divisions in the league this year. You look at the Bears, and again, I gave a pretty lofty stat line. Should McCarthy be extremely successful? With the Bears, you have Shane Waldron coming in as the offensive coordinator. He's been extremely successful no matter who the quarterback is. You've seen him be successful with Drew Locke.

You've seen him be successful with Geno Smith. And now he has a certified number one prospect, blue chip, Heisman winning quarterback who has the ability to put it all over the field and make plays himself. And you have some good wide receivers out there to throw it to. Now, offensive line, who knows a little uncertainty there. Defense was was pretty good last year and they've invested there as well. So it's really a very, very similar position as the Vikings are in because there is a lot of uncertainty with any given quarterback and with any given new situation for players, but it is poised for success.

And they made the investments to, to, you know, make it look good on paper. And so I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, the lions succeed in the way that they plan to. And there is like a basically a three way bar fight, kind of like we used to see in the old days with the NFC West, with the Niners and the Cardinals and the 49ers back when when excuse me, in the Seahawks, back when they all had young quarterbacks, Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick. And really just watch them ballot out and see who comes out on top. Kind of feels like when Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh were all good at the same time. Precisely. Right, they're fighting it out.

Although there's no Cleveland here, I don't think anyway. Right. Three years from now, who has the better team, Chicago or Minnesota? Man, that is a tough question i think it's a hard podcast to come on i mean that's because of this and i love i love answering questions like this because it makes you consider what matters a lot and so if you if you are to just go by the consensus, big board, and typically that's what has, has tended to work. You have to say that Caleb Williams will probably end up being a better quarterback than, than JJ McCarthy. That's what's been indicated by most statistics. That's been indicated by most analytics. You consider the situation around them.

Probably pretty similar. I think Justin Jefferson's quite a bit better than like their best wide receivers. DJ Moore, obviously great. Keenan Allen getting getting older. We've also seen injury concerns over year over year. And so you make, you kind of have to make the decision of how can you expect the coach to succeed? And I think the Vikings definitely get a heads up there that they've won a lot of games. They've won a lot of games in tricky situations. And obviously last year with, with not a lot of talent on the field due to injury, they were able to win games. So with that, I don't want to be a homer, but I'm inclined, especially given they have an indoor facility, which makes a big difference when you're playing every home game

in an indoor facility in that nasty NFC North winter that we love watching football in, but we hate playing football in it. And so you get in there, and I'm inclined to say that the Vikings are probably in a better position. Sans the quarterback where you just have to go and expect that Caleb Williams probably outperformed JJ McCarthy quite a bit based on the information we have right now. And I don't really buy that history.

And you mentioned your new Orleans connection. I don't really buy that history equals what's going to happen in the future because when I was growing up in Buffalo, it was Jim Kelly and then it was 20 years of crap. And then it was Josh Allen. I don't know their, their history of drafting JP Lossman and EJ manual had nothing to do with Josh Allen. And the same thing goes for Caleb Williams, Moses Moreno and Chad Hutchinson have nothing to do with whether Caleb Williams succeeds or not I think he'll probably end up being pretty good the concern if you're the Vikings is the ceiling on J.J. McCarthy is likely high I think higher than maybe some people made it out to be because he's a great athlete the ceiling on Caleb Williams he's one of the best quarterbacks ever

I mean that's what we've seen from number one, overall draft picks of his ilk. So if he reaches that, then of course you're not going to be better than them, no matter what else happens. But if the median outcome for both players happens, the Vikings, I think are a little bit better set up than the Chicago bears because of the coaching. I don't know if Matt Eberflus will be the coach two years from now because of the way that they went all the way to the bottom. And I don't think he's really proven himself as being a great coach so far, which puts that in question as opposed to O'Connell, who I think is shown at least to be a very good offensive mind and leader of

an organization there. Yeah. It's very fascinating though, the entire NFC North to try to project forward. Last thing, I just want to know for the entire league. So you guys in the sumer sports offices or on your zoom calls i assume because you guys are spread out a little bit you're chatting ball you're talking what's the take of yours for this season that you feel like goes against the grain the most that you've seen everybody talk about you know this is what's going to happen this season you're like i don't know i'll give you one for me i've seen a talk about, you know, this is what's going to happen this season. You're like, I don't know. I'll give you one for me. I've seen a ton of criticism of the Dallas

Cowboys off season. Oh, they didn't spend any money. They didn't do this and that. And their, their franchise is always falling apart. They didn't get a running back. I think they're going to be fantastic. I think they're going to be right there. And with Mike Zimmer as their defensive coordinator, they're going to have a chance to compete for a super bowl. That's – I don't know if it's a hot take to say I think the Cowboys are going to be great, but I think the Cowboys are going to be great when I hear everyone talking about how they're going to fall off. So that's mine. What's yours?

Yeah, so this is a Matt Collar exclusive for everyone because I have not revealed this yet, and it has been – it's been in the hot pot. It's been cooking like a good red beans and rice or a good chili or something like that. Last year, my big takeaways probably coming out of week two, week three, were that I thought Baker was going to end up being serviceable and be a good quarterback for that Tampa Bay Buccaneers team. And I thought that Jaden Daniels was going to win the Heisman.

And I was very lucky that both of those things happened. And so this year, when I was looking at the landscape, I can't shake it. Maybe I'm being a Homer here because, because Eric Eager is at the Panthers now, but I just think Bryce Young is going to be a good quarterback. He has the same kind of physical profile that a Baker Mayfield has. I think he's a little bit more athletic than a Baker Mayfield.

And I'm, I really believe that Deontay Johnson can be a good wide receiver. And you look at him, Dillon played pretty well out of the slot, obviously long time Minnesota Viking. Getting up there in age, I think they have tackles that are functional, and I think you see the progression of their young tackle and then Taylor Moten on the other side. I think that the protection will be a little better, and I really believe that Caleb Canals will put together an offensive system

that will make them successful. Will they win a lot of games? Will they win the division? I don't know. But I would expect a jump from Bryce Young that will shock a lot of people. Now, I could be completely off base on that, but we talked a lot about the number one pick here. There were reasons why he was the consensus one or two pick, depending on how you viewed him versus Stroud, and that's because he's an accurate quarterback, and he showed an ability

to get the ball around. I think now that he's in a system that has proven to rehabilitate people in the past, that he will be a good quarterback this year. Not crazy. So it's a little toasty. I'll give you that. It's, it's, it's pretty warm. It's pretty warm. Uh, I think that their team last year, if you added up the talent sporting cast, there aren't too many number one, overall draft picks, even at number one, who have had supporting cast that bad, every single position was almost bad. And their coaching was also not set up to be conducive to a rookie quarterback because when they played the Vikings, it was a lot of out of the shotgun, a lot of responsibility on the quarterback, not a lot of motion, not a lot of easy crossing stuff

for Bryce Young. I thought they asked him to do a ton in a situation where he wasn't going to ever be able to do that. And the comparison to Jared Goff in Los Angeles with Jeff Fisher is probably apt when it comes to this. So I don't think you're nuts. I don't think you're being nuts when it comes to this. Maybe another one, if we're talking young quarterbacks, might be that Michael Penix plays this year maybe a lot. But I don't want to wish anything bad on Kirk Cousins there.

I just wonder about how that hoof is going to hold up after an Achilles injury at age 36, because I'm only a couple of years older than Kirk and I feel terrible. So I don't know how much longer he's going to be able to, uh, to go forward with that. And I think they drafted him for a reason, but maybe that's a conversation for another day, Sam Brookhouse, which is spelled. And I think Minnesotans will appreciate this B R U C H H A U S of which we have a lot of house spelled that way around here. So, uh, great to talk with you, man. Really appreciate it. And I hope we can get together soon again. Thanks, man. Yeah, let's do it. Thank you so much, Matthew.